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Friday, 25 July 2014

Something amazing that I overlooked when looking at my list for FOW is that forgot that I can take a tankhunter platoon. So now instead of fielding a single King Tiger i'll be fielding 4 Hetzers.

Armour

Name

Mobility

Front

Side

Top

Equipment and Notes

Weapon

Range

ROF

Anti-tank

Firepower

Hetzer

Standard Tank

7

2

1

Hull MG, Overloaded.

7.5cm PaK39 gun

32"/80cm

2

11

3+

Hull mounted.

Hetzers are great tank hunters with an AT 11 and FP 3+ most allied tanks will be easypickings for these badboys. I do have to be carefull with my positioning as a side armour of 2 means that they're vulnearble to a lot of weaponry around.

Now what makes them standout in my list is that my tankhunters are veterans. This means that when I deploy at the start of the game or through an ambush. I can pick a piece of concealing terrain at least partially in my deployment zone, while within this terrain or concealed by it the hetzers shoot a full ROF even when moving and do a stormtrooper move on 2+. Now if I keep general Von Saucken within 15cm I get a re-roll on my stormtrooper move practicly guarantee I get that stormtrooper move that i'll often be using to move the Hetzers away out of my enemy's sight.

Next week i'll finally be playing with my army against a soviet shtraf bataljon, this will be a difficult match-up,but it does give me the opportunity to make a few photo's and provide you all with a battle report.

Monday, 21 July 2014

First up an amazing model, whoever is doing the Tadao, Penanggalan and Taisho sculpts should be praised for their amazing work. As I personnaly think that these are some of the most amazing sculpts of these two waves.

Pro:
Well the easiest pro is his 4 dice in mellee something both Cult and Wave have been struggling with, he's well armoured, fear (4), martial prowess and split attack will mean that even if only looking at his traits he's an amazing fighter. He's also got 7 wounds putting him right between a regular human and an oni.

Now his ki feats are incredible first up: immovable and toughness two for 3 ki once per game. This means that this model will be almost impossible to kill on the turn he uses this feat. Second ki feat gives armour piercing for 2 ki for the activation, a solid ki feat especially against Ito and Ryu. His last ki feat costs only 1 ki and let's him heal for the ki statistic of an enemy model killed within 3 inch once a turn.

Now his unique effects are interesting as he either gets soulles and fear 5, this means auto-winning any opposed ki rolls. His other unique effect is even better depending on what your opponent is, he gets brutal (1), impetuous, oni rage and powerful attack (1).

Con:
Alright this gonna be difficult. In my opinion his only con is that all of his special attacks require one dice. That's it. Now you might look at the 12 rice and think he's on the pricey side, trust me he's not, models with 4 dice are always more expensive and this guy makes up for it with all the extra's he's got.

Verdict: Awesome
Both Cult and Wave have been struggling with 4 dice models and this is an easy counter, I can see this model become an easy choice for both factions at the 42 rice mark.

Friday, 18 July 2014

So last Sunday GCT Studios officialy announced a new product set in the Bushido universe: Rise of the Kage. So what is this game? Well simply put a boardgame for 2-4 players where you divide the roll of ninja's or guards between each other, where the ninja's need to kill the daimyo and guards protect.

While I haven't heard anything about this besides the product i'm not excited for this, why? Because this type of product already exists. The miniature game Ronin, a historical samurai game by Osprey publishing has a scenario that works about the same, that was published in the Wargames Illustrated. AEG more know for their card games also used to publish a game that works on the same basis. Not to say that they shouldn't make this product, it has enough possibility to be an exciting and fun game, but in my opinion it's not original.

What i'm more excited for is the expansion of the lore of the bushido-verse and the miniatures.

While miniatures provided with boardgames are almost always plastic and quite simply designed, it is a promising concept art, maybe for an upcoming miniature? One can only hope.

Also in terms of artwork GCT has made great improvement. Just compare this with some of the artwork found in the rulebook, it's amazing!

I'll be looking forward these coming weeks about news from Rise of the Kage. you can follow them on facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/riseofthekage

Monday, 14 July 2014

A little update from what i've been painting this weekend. I'll be starting a Prefecture warband soon and want to build it around the samurai. Katsumoto is an excellent start in my opinion as he's got tactician, command, order and is still a decent fighter.

I think I got a bit lazy with my warbands as all my warbands have a primary color as a main theme, yellow for my prefecture, blue for my tengu and red for my silvermoon (coming soon!).

Happy how he turned out the yellow, goldbrown and dark brown work well together. Was a bit afraid the red from the sword handles would look weird besides the yellow, but it's a good contrast.

The highlights for the coat went well and I think the white trimming make an excellent addition to the coat.

Friday, 11 July 2014

Something a little different from Bushido. Flames of War is my one of my favorite miniature games, it's a 15mm game with company sized battles with historical armies, mainly from the WW2 era.

Now in the Netherlands there's going to be an official Battlefront tournament in Oktober, while this seems to be a far away. For Flames of War you need to play a lot because of the immense amount of forces available.
So i'll be posting my armylists, experience and thoughts till the tournament and of course when the time comes a report of the tournament itself.

Here is some info about the tournament on the Battlefront website.
http://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=4539

The army i'll be playing will be from the Axis side, it's SS-Freiwilligen-PanzergrenadierKompanie Nederland.
This is a motorised infantry company, meaning that in almost all cases i'll be defending and based on this i've build my company up. Now I chose this list on it's background and it's rules. For the historical part this company was part of the SS-Freiwilligen Legions and was recruited from the Netherlands, being Dutch this appealed to me. Now they also have some nice rules from the company and from the platoons themselves.

The company rules are Instant Readiness and Following Orders. Instant Readiness says that any platoon from the company can always make a stormtrooper move even if pinned and can move towards the enemy. Following Orders says that if an platoon became pinned in the assault phase you can make a morale test to remove pinned after the assault is over. The Pak 40 and the HMG weapon platoons can make combat attachments, this means that I can attach weapons from the platoons to the infantry platoons.

Armylist made thanks to easyarmy.com

The company is made up out of 7 platoons, HQ and a warrior.As should be with a motorised platoon absolutely everything has transports ensuring me that everything will be where they're needed. 7 platoons is normally a bad number for a company having to go on the defensive as only half rounded down are deployed, meaning 3 on the board 4 on reserve. But with the weapon platoons I can make combat attachments before deploying reducing my total platoons to 6, this means I effectively have 4 platoons on the table with 3 in reserve.

The company has excellent defense against tanks with every platoon having 5 panzerfausts (CC, command and 3 from the mg stands). The small amount of stands on the table will mean I will have trouble with infantry hordes to help against this I have an HMG platoon. Now depending on my opponent I decide what I will attach to my infantry platoons, when fighting tanks I attach the pak 40 platoon, when fighting infantry the HMG platoon. This gives the company a good amount of flexibilty as is necessary on a tournament.

For divisional support the King Tiger is an expensive toy, it's very hard to destroy and will most likely destroy any tank in a one on one fight. Problem is it's high cost at 345 points it's one of the most expensive tanks in the game. The idea for taking this tank besides how cool a King Tiger is, is that it's my answer against enemy heavy tanks with an AT 16, especially now that the new book Bridge at Remagen has come out with the pershing there's a reasonably chance i'll be seeing those on the table. The Panzerspäh are cheap, fast armoured cars they're usefull for lifting gone to ground, hunting other armoured cars or helping defend against artillery. Now my favorite toys the 15cm sFH18 howitzers with the high AT, FP 1+ and the bunkerbuster rule they're excellent to direct fire against tanks and attacking infantry. They're also great firing bombardments with a max range of 2 meters, I don't have to worry about the range and still have a AT of 5 against top armour staying a threat against tanks and a firepower of 2+.

Finally I chose the warrior general Dietrich von Saucken, with him I het a re-roll on my stormtrooper move on all platoons within his command range of 15 cm and a re-roll on a reserve dice each turn, helping me get those all important reserves fast.

It's gonna be awhile till I get a chance to play but i'll posting pictures of my company soon.

Monday, 7 July 2014

The highlighting is pretty easy just use the base color you used before washing. Unfortunately i'm not that good at doing faces so Sojobo's face looks a bit weird in my opinion, but i'm pleased with the overal product.

I also colored half of the base to show his LOS and use the arrow as the center point for running and charging.

The body and clothing worked out well with simply redoing the base color. I'm especially happy with how the blue clothing went, as with a brown wash it's possible to overdo it and obscure the color beneath making the highlights look out of place.

Especialy with the wings it's easy to see I used an excessive amount of wash. Don't know how to remove it without stripping the paint, thankfully without the flash from the camera it's hardly noticeable.

The last thing i did was add a little flock to base giving it a bit more character.

And here is the finished product ready to kick ass, at least when the Tengu come out as a faction.

Friday, 4 July 2014

Well that didn't go well this last week, sorry about the abrupt drop in activity without any warning. From now on i'll be posting regularly on Mondays and Fridays, there might be surprise updates in between but these won't happen all too often.

For the fan i've done the leaves with "reflective green" the little balls i've done with "scarlet", the handle has been done with "beige brown".

The gauntlet has been done with a base of "english uniform" with the details done in "gold". The staff top and bottom has also been done with "gold".

The gem on Sojobo's head has been done in "flat yellow".

The tankard has been done in "german camouflage medium brown", the rope has been done in "goldbrown".

As the last thing his finger and toes have been done with "green grey". I've purposefully left his wings, hair and feet black to keep the crow look.

On the left leg are two small bottles, i've kept them "german camouflage medium brown" as i got a bit lazy with the final details.

i've done the rock under his feet a light grey i mixed with parts "green grey" and "white".' The earth has been done with "flat earth". I don't have an Image with these two added because I forgot to take the picture (d'oh!).

Sojobo ready to take his bath.

For the wash I used the vallejo wash in the picture "Sepia Shade". Despite the name it's a very brown shade in my opinion and I use it for about everything i paint.

Don't mind the models in the backgrounds those are for a post another time.

I use a lot of wash and I would recommend to do that too as it picks out all the details in the recesses. For example Sojobo's abs.

In the second picture in this article or in one of my previous posts it becomes a blank slate, but with the wash all the muscles can be clearly seen.

What's also great with wash is that because it's very thin it will seep into the recesses and already will seem as if it's highlighted.

A view from the back to conclude the post. On Monday i'll show the final step: highlights!